Background and Construction
Fort Detroit began on the Detroit River built to try to keep the British from moving west of New England and to monopolize the fur trade in North America. Before he built Fort Detroit, Cadillac was commandant of Fort de Buade, another French outpost in North America. Fort de Buade was abandoned in 1697 due to conflicts with religious leaders over the trading of alcohol to the Native Americans. Cadillac then persuaded his superiors to let him build a new settlement. He reached the Detroit River on July 23, 1701.
When he landed on the site he held a celebration to formally take control of the area. In honor of Louis Phélypeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain (or his son, Jerome), Minister of Marine to Louis XIV he named the new settlement Fort Ponchartrain du Detroit. The storehouse and the stockade were started immediately, but the first building completed was Ste. Anne's Church. The stockade came next and was made of logs rising about 12 feet into the sky with towers in each corner.
Read more about this topic: Fort Detroit
Famous quotes containing the words background and, background and/or construction:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)